Happy Birthday, Constance Bennett!

I have always admired Constance Bennett.  She was beautiful, a good actress, played a mean hand of poker and ran her own cosmetics and clothing company.   Her good business sense also helped make her the highest-paid actress in the early 1930s.  That's saying a lot in the time of Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford.  $150,000 for a movie or $30,000 per week ... darn good money for 1931.  That's a heck of a lot more than Bob was making when he co-starred with Constance in The Easiest Way.

            Bob and Constance Bennett in The Easiest Way (1931)

 She was born October 22, 1904, into the acting Bennett family.  Both parents were actors and sister Joan Bennett would also become a successful actress.  She married five times, the last time to a U.S. Air Force officer in 1946, finally a good marriage that lasted until her death in 1965.  Even as a life-long Democrat involved in politics throughout her life, she remained friends with Montgomery, Mr. Republican, and appeared twice on Robert Montgomery Presents. 

             Clark Gable and Constance in After Office Hours (1935)

60 years is much too short a life, but Constance apparently lived those years fully.  She is buried in Arlington National Cemetery ... not many Hollywood people have that distinction.